Blue Thunder Pro Samhain Slam 2 Card Posted

I just want to say a few things in respond to your heartfelt hiatus post.

First, I'm really sorry to hear that things have been difficult recently with your mental and physical health. I hope that both improve as quickly as realistic right now.  I completely empathize with a reduction of energy level for various reasons. It wreaks havoc on everything and ends up reducing free time (and what you can do during it). 


100% agreed.   My credo has always been "Real life first" when it comes to Fire Pro and e-feds.

I also believe in balance though and not kicking myself when I'm down.  So my brain has some advice for you that I haven't been able to fully implement myself but that I think could maybe help you. 

Right now you're having a rough time but I know you love Fire Pro and e-fedding. If you have to consciously take it out of your life right now for longer than a month or two, that decision may end up making you feel worse.

I speak from experience on that. As hard as it has been for me to produce anything over the past two years (edits or shows), I end up feeling worse about the situation when I consciously tell myself I'm going to go on hiatus or stop.  (I actually officially ended my feds back in 2011 and that lasted exactly 1 year before I revolted against it!)  

If you're struggling right now emotionally, and Fire Pro is a big part of your enjoyment, don't cut it out entirely.  I mean, if you're just taking a few weeks off of streaming, that's different. But if you are really envisioning taking 2-3 months off from doing anything, that could end up making you feel bad because a) you don't get to do Fire Pro stuff and b) you consciously know in your mind you had to remove something that you like doing.  (again, I speak from experience about how frustrating both of those realizations can be in this situation).

Maybe consider doing things a little differently to maximize what it is you enjoy about e-fedding while cutting down some of the things that feel like work and that aren't giving you as much enjoyment. I've been trying to find a way to re-structure how I do my fedding. That has been an enormously hard thing to do since I have years and years of inertia doing things a certain way. Trying to scale that back is hard but I also know it's the right answer even though I still don't know exactly how to do it. But I keep trying to find a way. That's because I know I'm happier with feds in my life than cutting out that "responsibility" and enjoying the remaining free time. When I have that free time, I just want to spend it on feds!  Even though I've been too tired to write content when I have the time, the storylines are in my head. As long as they play out in my head, I know that I am still in "that world" and want to be.  Finding a way to express that hasn't been easy recently but I want to keep trying.  Granted, I've done pretty much nothing recently so it hasn't been a time/energy drain.

Maybe you can find a way to either stream less on Twitch or just present your content in a different way that doesn't require so much time spent on weekly production and streams.  Maybe the engagement will go up too if you present things in a different way.  Your characters and stories may be even freer to shine outside the cruel realm of RNG.

Anyway, I hope this helped in some or numerous ways.  Fire Pro is all for fun. If you know there are other things you can be doing right now that are less time/energy-intensive but still fun for you, maybe it's worth leaning into them more. If you still really want to e-fed though, I think its at least worth considering ways to keep it going.  I may be writing some of this to myself too though since I've been trying to re-ignite my own fire for the past two weeks and the damn wind keeps blowing it out. 💨🕯 

 In any case, I really hope that things improve and that you feel better soon 😀